Upon turning 40 recently, I did what any self-respecting middle-class man does at this moment of mid-life crisis ... I joined the National Trust.

And while a sports car or an affair might appeal more to some at my age, I’m very happy with my decision.

The organisation has had a hard time of late, however. The row over the vote on whether to allow trail hunting on its land, which takes place at the AGM on Saturday, October 21, has bloods up high on both sides and the trust somewhat caught in the middle.

Not long before that was something of a storm in a tea cup over celebrating the sexuality of one of its property's former owners.

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A fair few farmers in the West Country are also distinctly unimpressed that the trust has put its weight behind calls for post-Brexit farming subsidies to be focused on environmental benefits rather than supporting food production.

There are certainly those in the countryside who won’t be too sad to see the back of outgoing chief executive Dame Helen Ghosh from the organisation’s head office in Wiltshire when she takes over as Master of Balliol College, at Oxford University in March.

None of that was in my mind on a recent Sunday, however, when I spent a wonderful wet afternoon walking around the breathtaking beauty of the Stourhead estate in Wiltshire.

In the past few weeks my wife and I have visited a number of National Trust properties.

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We have marvelled at the views from Dyrham Park - a real treasure right here in Bath - towards and beyond the Bristol Channel to the Welsh hills; climbed a hill on the edge of the Lake District to look across Morcambe Bay; ambled around Shugborough in Staffordshire as a much more appealing alternative to the usual M6 services on the way back from a holiday in the North; and imagined turning one of the outbuildings at Tyntesfield, near Bristol, into a perfect writing hut.

The genius of the design was how every few hundred yards you would turn you would be presented with a gap in the trees perfectly framing a chapel across the lake or a Palladian bridge, the arch which is matched by the hills sitting behind it.

While nature offers many beautiful places, this has been planned by man. It is not a wild forest but a living exhibition, designed, curated and exceptionally well maintained.

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How anyone could contrive of such a place is beyond me but I’m very pleased they did.

And I’m equally grateful to the National Trust and all its volunteers for keeping it that way and making it open to people like me who have never before seen anything quite like it.

The National Trust was founded in 1895 and has been protecting the nation’s heritage for more than 120 years.

It owns 248,000 acres of land, making its contribution to countryside issues an important one. But it does much more. It owns 775 miles of our coastline and is best known for estates such as Dryham Park and Stourhead, indeed it owns 500 historic houses, castles, ancient monuments gardens and parks and nature reserves.

The organisation works to not just preserve these sites but keep them open to the pubic. To some, like the big estates, you have to pay or become a member, but for many, such as the beaches and much of the woodland, access is free.

The trust has a big part to play in the future of the countryside but also in connecting the town and country and in preserving our broader heritage.

And regardless of whatever is topping the news agenda this week or the outcome of the vote on trail hunting on its land, I for one am very glad it does.